Posted 8:05 PM by Gene

Okay, EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEW!, blame the FCC for THIS one.

Posted 2:16 PM by Gene

WP chatter: "Does the editorial page really work anymore?"

No. That's why it moved to the news pages.

Posted 1:43 PM by Gene

I'm afraid the screaming meemies at The Nation have a point. We should be able to make room for stupid cartoons about Mohammed and one-sided diatribes about demagogues like Rachel Corrie. But we can't, and we've retreated into our little rooms.

Posted 1:40 PM by Gene

The DUHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHB thinks:

CASTING OUT NINES [John Derbyshire]

A bazillion emails on the dog puzzle. It's just a slightly dressed-up version of the old "casting out nines" technique.

THEOREM. Take any number X; jumble up its digits to get Y; subtract the lesser from the greater of X and Y; the answer is bound to be divisible by 9.
PROOF. Suppose the digits of the original number, in order, are A, B, C, D,... That means that the number is A times some power of ten, plus B times the next-lower power of ten, plus C times the next-lower power of ten, and so on. When you jumble up the digits to make a new number, this new number will **still** be A times some power of ten, plus B times some power of ten, plus... Only the powers are different! Subtracting gives you A times (some power of ten minus some other power of ten) plus B times (some power of ten minus some other power of ten) plus... But any power of ten minus any other power of ten gives you a number divisible by nine. ( E.g. 10,000 minus 10 gives you 9,990.) So the result of your subtraction must divide by 9.

So that 4-digit difference -- the result of your subtraction in step 2 of the dog puzzle -- is bound to be some multiple of 9. For illustration, I'll suppose it's 7524, which does indeed divide by 9.

Instead of removing your chosen digit D (I'll choose D=5) from that difference, just imagine replacing the digit D by a zero. Call the resulting 4-digit number N. In my example, N=7024.

Now, treat that final step -- jumbling the three remaining digits -- as jumbling up the **four** digits of N, but making sure the zero ends up at far left. (E.g. treat jumbling up 724 to get 247 as jumbling up N=7024 to get 0247.)

By my theorem, the 3-digit (ignoring the leading zero now) result of this jumble differs from N by some multiple of 9. (Yes it does: 7024 minus 247 equals 6777, which is 9 times 753.)

AND, it also differs by some multiple of 9 from the number you get if you jumble up N's digits to put the zero -- the one that replaced the mystery digit -- at the far right, units, position. So 247 doesn't just differ from 7024 by some multiple of 9, but also from 7420 likewise... which is some multiple of 9, minus D! (Yep: 247 differs from 7420 by 7173, which is 9 times 797. and 7420 is 9 times 825, minus 5.)

Armed with this understanding, divide that final, jumbled, 3-digit number by 9 and note the remainder R. R, plus the mystery digit D, must equal 9. So D is 9 minus R. (247 is 9 times 27, remainder 4. 4 plus 5 is 9.)

So all the dog program does is look at your final, jumbled-up three digits, divide by 9 to get the remainder, and subtract that remainder form 9. Note that the final, jumbled-up three digits can't divide EXACTLY by 9 (giving remainder zero), because then so would my "N," which would mean you hadn't removed a digit....

Posted at 01:22 PM

Posted 1:13 PM by Gene

Barry Diller, formerly the Second Coming of Christ, dumps his manservant and dumps on a competitor:

...Diller said he didn't think that Google or Yahoo! are invulnerable to competition. "I don't think market share belongs to just one company. We're actually ready to compete."

He chided Google in particular for its "Don't Be Evil" mantra, calling it "pretentious."

"The truth is to a lot of people, Google is now a real business and they do a lot of things that people won't like," Diller said.

Like BLOGGER?

(Via IWantMedia.com)

Posted 1:06 PM by Gene

A PENNY FOR YOUR MAGAZINE
EBay’s Bargain-Basement Subscriptions Harm Brands

Has anyone heard of the phrase "You get what you pay for"?

Posted 1:04 PM by Gene

Aaron McGruder Announces a Six-Month Sabbatical From His 'Boondocks' Comic

Which means the company that draws and writes his strip will REALLY get it when he comes back.

(Via the invincible ROMY)

Posted 1:02 PM by Gene

And in the serious, conscientious, truth-telling world of NEWS HACKS:

Anna Nicole Smith = 551 GoogleNews hits.

Posted 12:57 PM by Gene

G000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000GLE insider selling? PERISH the THOUGHT!

Posted 12:54 PM by Gene

US postwar planning for Iraq almost nonexistent

Sometimes you have to wonder, did Dubya do this just to avenge Papa?

Posted 12:52 PM by Gene

Count on THE PAPER OF RE-CORD to take the joy out of ANYTHING (except bashing conservatives and Republicans):

But the film is also the most hopeful and emotionally mature of Disney's fables. The answer to childhood pain lies in adult affection, as Lady discovers a romantic partner in the figure of the homeless mutt Tramp. Almost imperceptibly, the film shifts gears from children's fantasy to grown-up romance, building not just to that transcendent moment behind Tony's Italian Restaurant, when Tramp nudges the precious meatball toward his Lady-love, but also to a graceful suggestion of physical intimacy, when the sun rises and the two dogs are discovered waking up together.

Posted 11:51 AM by Gene

Shucks, I guess anti-abortion protesters aren't racketeers anymore.

Posted 11:34 AM by Gene

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO:

Report: Top 10 Advertisers Spent 3.3% Less in 2005

You can't do this! You MUST throw your money down the drain! You MUST finance JUNK TELEVISION!! Where is your SENSE OF PATRIOTISM?????

Posted 11:32 AM by Gene

For once we feel sorry for GE BANCORP and REALTY:

On the bright side, NBC notes that it will win the week in the ratings for a third consecutive week -- something it has not accomplished in 18 months.

That, by the way, is when NBC covered the Summer Games from Sydney.

Somebody SIX-SIGMA LISA!

Posted 10:54 AM by Gene

NOW HERE COME THE SUCKER -- BARGAIN HUNTERS!

Posted 10:53 AM by Gene

Douglas Baird, a bankruptcy expert at the University of Chicago, said: "I'd suspect some justices haven't the slightest idea who Anna Nicole is."

GOOD FOR THEM.

Posted 10:45 AM by Gene

GASP!!!!! SHAREHOLDERS PANIC AS G000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000GLE'S CFO PREDICTS SLOW GROWTH!!!!!!!!!! THE SHARES ARE DOWN $50!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

After having gone UP that much the last two weeks and after having gone up $280 since the THING STARTED TRADING.

Posted 9:08 AM by Gene

THEY CALL ME BYRON TWEEZERHEAD.

Posted 8:42 AM by Gene

Here's the next big thing: school days off for Muslims. We're not opposed -- Jews get their holy days off, and they're a small part of the population; but educrats will endorse them not because there are more Muslims, but because it's PC.

Posted 8:10 AM by Gene

To all you Indians who've accidentally hit on my blog due to my link, let me say, you have a GREAT country.

Posted 5:04 PM by Gene

It is as frustrating to find my hits are as much at the mercy of posts on the WaPost properties as they ever were with the Next Blog button. To whomever is paying even slight attention: If you read my blog, and you like it, e-mail a friend. I'd like a more steady visitorship for a change.

Posted 5:01 PM by Gene

MySpace CEO Chris DeWolf says to his knowledge the backlash hasn't caused any advertisers to drop their support of the site. "We get phone calls from time to time, but when we describe the safety measure that we've put into place generally the advertisers are relieved and feel good about what we're doing."

TRANSLATION: Some advertising fiefdom exec calls an underling into the office and ask, "What's this about MyFace.com? I've heard it's something about selling kiddie porn. Could you look into that?" And the underling makes a call, and finds it's not about kiddie porn, and the fiefdom can throw $100 million more into the bonfire.

From the congratulatory tone of this piece I guess SI has $1 billion of his own to burn.

(Via IWantMedia.com)

Posted 3:01 PM by Gene

"CRUNCHY CON" has become to THE CORNER what METROSEXUAL was to THE PROFESSOR, and you can BOTH stick it where the sun don't shine.

Posted 1:50 PM by Gene

Stale.com does it AGAIN:

Today's Doonesbury: Short and sour.

Posted 1:40 PM by Gene

There goes that @#$%&* NAZ...REACTIO...conSERvative again:

Pope says embryos have rights from conception

Posted 1:23 PM by Gene

This has not been a good week for TV fans: Dennis Weaver has died.

Or as Terry Teachout put it, melodramatically but well enough:

Of course we’re feeling nostalgic for our lost youth, just as our parents felt nostalgic about big-band music. But it’s not just that we miss those old shows, and the simpler world view they collectively epitomized: we also miss the fact that they gave us something in common, something to talk about besides the weather. We all know who Don Knotts is, which is why it made us so sad to hear of his death (and why the obituary of a second banana got so much play on the evening newscasts, which are mostly viewed by older people). What percentage of us can recall the name of anyone who competed on American Idol two years ago?

Posted 11:33 AM by Gene

No Kurt, Hahvahd Mutual Fund will not appoint a Larry Summers 2.0. More likely is a Uriah Heep 263.0.

Posted 9:37 AM by Gene

Conservatives! REPUBLICANS! You've been warned: the network-news shows are doing more -- HARD NEWS!!!!!

Pfffffffffffffffffffffft!

Posted 9:14 AM by Gene

Carol Hamilton, president of the L'Oréal Paris brand division of L'Oréal USA in New York, said she had been shrugging off the efforts to make a molehill out of "Brokeback Mountain" and the other nominees.

"Of course I've read all those articles," Ms. Hamilton said, adding, "My feeling is that it will still be the most-watched show by our consumers" of any TV program this year. Women typically compose as much as two-thirds of the Oscar audience.

"And the attentiveness for the show is at a much higher level than a normal show," Ms. Hamilton said. "That makes our commercials more effective."...

"The Grammys, the People's Choice, the Golden Globes are all nice, but nothing is the party that is the Oscars," said Richard Castellini, vice president for consumer marketing at CareerBuilder.com in Chicago....

"When you have some of these bigger television properties, more eyeballs on the screen, it's a great opportunity," said Alison Lewis, senior vice president for integrated marketing at the Coca-Cola North America unit of Coca-Cola in Atlanta.

I don't think I'd want to work for these people for the next three years, as that's how long they may be dropping names, and torturing their subordinates.

Posted 1:19 PM by Gene

And in more show-biz mafia news, THE CLUNKER BROTHERS are selling [C]RAP to sell their CRAP, and should see their sales further decline.

Posted 1:08 PM by Gene

The head of GE BANCORP and REALTY's GAMES unit wants to see B0DE back.

Please! Isn't one hypermarketed goose-egg enough?

Posted 1:05 PM by Gene

In the end, the fight between Blu-Ray and HD-DVD is a fight to see who can deliver better videogames, and we hope for this cause all the parties involve waste billions, and confuse the public, and set the cause of lousy "entertainment" back by years.

Posted 12:47 PM by Gene

This is just a repeat of L'Affaire Ovitz: Mafia types scheme, the world yawns, and Hollywood disgorges more junk than ever.

Meantime the biz gets another video-game director.

Posted 11:02 AM by Gene

Bill Richardson's running for president!

"The governor feels very strongly about getting involved personally to promote New Mexico's film industry," Richardson spokesman Pahl Shipley said.

Let me guess: unlimited abortions -- and NO BLOOD FOR OIL! Or something like that.

Posted 10:57 AM by Gene

Did you know John Paul II has his own museum in Washington?

The Detroit Archdiocese does.

Posted 10:55 AM by Gene

Either way, California's next governor's a Democrat.

Posted 10:33 AM by Gene

DA POST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! gives Little Jeffy a suggestion:

If past is prologue, the Winter Olympics' poor ratings performance should garner Jeff Zucker another promotion.

I've got it -- make him CEO of GE BANCORP AND REALTY!

Posted 10:17 AM by Gene

Here's an idea, Dubya: let's appoint a NEW ORLEANS CZAR!

Posted 10:06 AM by Gene

John Bolton lives up to the fears of those who said he would wreck our foreign policy by speaking to the conservative FEDERALIST SOCIETY, a root of EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEVIL. Never mind that the League of Nations is a boiling-over melting pot of corruption and intolerance, nor that it's an excuse for crime, big and little.

Posted 10:01 AM by Gene

Meantime People Newsrag goes civil war blahblahblah. We wonder that both rags didn't sound a cover tocsin over the EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEVIL threat to abortion, a right as sacred as life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. (Well liberty and the pursuit of happiness anyway.)

Posted 9:58 AM by Gene

Mr. Mark must be running out of things to spin or plug to put India on the cover. But he does afford Hamas's prime minister a chance to sound slightly reconciliatory; obviously he knew he was speaking to American news hacks.

Posted 8:17 PM by Gene

The secretive greedmeister once of Bill's Bugdom wants a new TAXPAYER-FINANCED ARENA for his team-- FAST!

How about as fast as a computer with a blue screen?

Posted 6:42 PM by Gene

The blithering ass Bill (Bzumbzumbzum) Buckley has lit a fire under conservatives by suggesting the Iraq war is a failure. We will admit we can't see it as a total success, despite the vast efforts of bloggers, but where does the father of history's greatest satirical novelist get his information? From the nightly news? Three years of operations in Iraq suggest ebb and flow, and now it's flowing, and now people are talking about civil war, and now Bill Buckleys must remind people why anybody paid attention to him in the first place, which a lack of big words and a speech defect might have rendered without reason.

And inevitably a SUPERDUPERMEGAGIGABLOGGER must explain him in 1,362 WORDS, and bring in Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson to sound erudite, and the Ottoman Empire too, when the truth is it may be just an ass being an ass.

Posted 6:35 PM by Gene

Before America's PC and professional athletics factories think of divesting from Israel, they may want to choose somewhat worthier places -- like Sudan.

Posted 6:28 PM by Gene

Speaking of Curley's (Nyuk! Nyuk! Nyuk!) Stooges, they go back to their primary activity -- wasting our time -- by running their annual press release on all the wonderful show-biz types who've been nominated for the award Henry Kissinger, Yasser Arafat and Jimmah won. This is why you have blogging, CURLEY, and this is why newspapers are tanking, however many read them ONLINE.

Posted 6:21 PM by Gene

We see also (from the Freep, where we learned of Don Knotts) that the virile rugged TV star Darren McGavin has died. We cannot help commenting that barrel of hotheads (of which I am one) beat the first online AP dispatch on Mr. Knotts by at least five minutes, and nobody's posted on Mr. McGavin yet. Say what you will about the Freep, its amateurs have broken more news than the professionals.

Posted 6:06 PM by Gene

When someone asked what he knew about Houston, with the Houston Texans holding the first pick in the draft, Bush, 20, was quick and direct.

"No state tax," he said, prompting an outburst of laughter.

Reggie Bush for governor!

Posted 5:39 PM by Gene

Yet another sitcom staple, Don Knotts, has died, and we don't get any younger.

I suspect the hacks will inundate us with that infernal word "innocence" again, given when and how he first became a star. Andy Griffith's show was cultural bubble gum, and it like other such masterworks got seared into our psyches because of infinite reruns to fill infinite schedules. There is no bigger story to this, and it insults the memory of the people who diverted the millions successfully even with bubble gum to insist their efforts had a larger purpose. We await a veritable deluge of blatherskite when Andy goes -- and it will doubly insult him.

Posted 5:11 PM by Gene

Some late-breaking news:

CIA Officers Warn of Iraq Civil War, Contradicting Bush's Optimism

BBC NEWS Middle East US senators warn of Iraq civil war

Civil War In Iraq? - by William S. Lind
The answer is that civil war is already underway in Iraq.

Iraq Edges Towards Civil War

Allawi: this is the start of civil war - Sunday Times - Times Online

Possibility of Iraq civil war looms large

Democracy Now! Seymour Hersh: Iraq "Moving Towards Open Civil War"

Iraq and "civil war" in quotes yields 22,700,000 hits on Google.

(Inspired by a Freeper)

Posted 2:40 PM by Gene

The Democrats become THE NATIONAL SECURITY PARTY!

ARK ARK ARK!

Flex your muscles, Popeyes, and prepare to fight terrorism with some POLICE ACTIONS!

Posted 2:25 PM by Gene

Another DOG that wasn't screened for the AD-BLURBISTS TOPS the B.O.!

MOVIES ARE BETTER THAN EVER!

And someone tell Jack "Everyone Under 17 Admitted" Fithian CRITICALLY-ACCLAIMED GORE may not sell as well to kids as it used to.

Posted 11:20 AM by Gene

Let us not put a fine face on it: the GAMES now mercifully ending were a PR disaster. They introduced not one new Coke or Wheaties annoyance; their enduring symbols are B0DE, the Happiness Boys and the Hot Dog. So far as we can tell there wasn't even any sort of world's record set in anything except for ennui. All these dull events proved why ice sports have little following otherwise; the men's hockey snooze could only have been enlivened by some goons trashing the dorms. Most importantly, they seem to have broken a lot of people of the Olympics TV-viewing habit, despite all those EXTREME sports (weren't they supposed to lasso a YOUNGER DEMOGRAPHIC?), and it's hard to see GE BANCORP and REALTY amassing much of an audience again before Vancouver, and we see no Mary Lou (fingernails-on-blackboard SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEECH) Retton of the ice coming to Little Jeffy's rescue, assuming he hasn't been fired by then. THE GAMES' only hope as a TV tentpole is in GE B&R selling its subsid. One would say the ORGANIZERS needn't worry as they'll always have CEOs taking three-month vacations and endlessly haranguing their subordinates afterwards, but even in the sealed caves of their brains a little light must someday shine through, created by the burning funeral pyres of their wasted money.

Posted 10:15 AM by Gene

Former State Rep. Thomas Druce will be paroled from prison March 13 after having served the minimum two years of a sentence for running over a homeless man in his SUV, leaving the man dead on a dark street near the state Capitol, and then covering up his involvement in the accident for months.

This, with our state legisla-TORS, counts as an achievement.

Posted 10:02 AM by Gene

B0DE!

If the tragic tale of B0de, combined with the tragic tale of The Fictional Memoirist, tells us anything, it's to never be friendly with BIGMEDIA's friends.

Posted 5:51 PM by Gene

We still don't know why Fats waited out the storm, and we don't know how he'll revive a local culture that was dead before it, but God bless him.

Posted 5:42 PM by Gene

So this is why so many aliterate CEOs let their desks read The Econowiz, aside from the fact it's Bugmeister Bill's Brain Food: they (the desks, that is) get to learn that -- celebrity rags use EXCLAMATION POINTS!!!!!!!!!!

(Via the usual Romy)

Posted 5:39 PM by Gene

We have given up on the subject of movie violence in part because the biz will forever stick to it in part as a means of sticking it to Red Country, and also because nobody will challenge JACK'S ALPHABET SOUP, and also because most MOVIE AD-BLURBISTS love it, and also because every time politicians complain about it they go into their PREENING mode whether they mean to or not, and they never mean to.

Posted 5:35 PM by Gene

It's a heckuva good reason to let this ports deal go through just because we're committed to it.

Posted 5:30 PM by Gene

How well we are served by two-party government: Republicans want to finance private schools, and Democrats want to finance teachers' unions, and so children in Arizona aren't learning to speak English.

Posted 5:28 PM by Gene

Strike strike strike! Please, Gene, bring down the biggest egos in sport! Pretty please, strike!

Posted 5:26 PM by Gene

I'd like to ask con-SER-va-tives THIS one about THEIR FAVORITE COMPANY: how does it help their alleged cause for smaller government by palming off more of its health-care costs to Uncle Sucker?

Posted 5:20 PM by Gene

Stumbling across this story, which details how four RENDELLMINIUMS are going up near a closed Pillsbury flour mill in Minneapolis, reminds me how this nation seems capable of producing only superexpensive housing in cities -- certainly not jobs -- which may explain why Ground Zero and New Orleans haven't come back.

Posted 5:12 PM by Gene

NBC Streaming Gold Medal Hockey Game

Whether the lunkheads of broadcasting like it or not, big TV events won't stay off the Web forever. GE BANCORP AND REALTY NETWORK should have done this four years ago.

Posted 1:49 PM by Gene

And a "professional blogger" hands in his resignation from making money, so maybe blogging is on the downcurve.

He made "99.9%" of his money during a three-week fundraiser.

Posted 1:37 PM by Gene

I'd never heard of The L Magazine -- it's "New York City's Event Guide", or one of 600 at any rate -- but some writer for the site linked by MediaBistro has a few interesting grafs on the great democratic revolution called blogging:

Somewhere along the line, though — and were I pressed to get more precise, I’d probably trace much of it back to the days of Rathergate (also known as CBS News’ botch of the Bush National Guard story) — the whole business turned unbearably tedious.

Take, for instance, the blogosphere’s preferred term for its traditional press counterparts — the mainstream media, or, in the too-cute-by-half formulation favored by many: the “MSM.” Innocuous enough, perhaps, but somehow, it always seems to be typed with a sneer. Beyond the sneering, though, is the fact that, once you’ve labeled something, you can attribute qualities and behaviors to it. It paves the way for a sort of aggregating that can be quite handy. When Judith Miller flubs the WMD story, it’s not just the fault of a Times reporter and her editor, it’s a failure of the “MSM.” When a newspaper columnist half-asses 800 words about the Internet, it’s not just one guy kicking something out ahead of a deadline, it’s a piece indicative of the attitude of the “MSM” as a whole. And so the debate is further codified as “us vs. them,” and everyone’s old resentments are kept warm and ready for use.

More than just terminology, though, there’s the matter of tone. If there’s currently an expression floating around more obnoxious than Instapundit’s “Heh,” I’ve yet to come across it. With a single syllable the man manages to capture the sense of smug self-satisfaction that’s come to pervade the blogosphere — the sly pleasure of a self-consciously smart junior high kid who’s caught his teacher in a mistake.

Then there’s the medium’s more sanctimonious side, the more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger stylings perfected by BuzzMachine.com proprietor Jeff Jarvis. Among other things, Entertainment Weekly’s founder and the former Sunday editor at the New York Daily News, Jarvis can usually be found at the keyboard shaking his head sadly at the lost little old media sheep and discussing the new “Citizen’s Media” in tones of breathless delight. He seems to mean well, and, hell, might even be right, but lord can he beat a man down with the earnestness. He’s the sort of guy who would (and, in fact, recently did) respond to a Glenn Reynolds remark about readers feeling too entitled to comment on blog posts with the line, “Entitlement? No, I’d call it enlightenment.” His faith in the body public is touching, but it tends to grate over the long haul.

And of course there are your more vigorous participants. Your Atrios and your Kos and your Power Lines and Malkins and Little Green Footballs — your merchants of outrage, if you will. More noteworthy than the outrage, though, is the unyielding self-assurance — the sense a person gets after a few stops by that, not only are the sites’ proprietors right, but that they have always been right, always will be right in the future, and could easily enough lead us all to the promised land provided that the rest of the mouth-breathing hordes would only get in line. It’s almost thrilling in its way, witnessing confidence of a sort that would make Gore Vidal blush, but it tends to sound a bit shrill after a while, like cicadas, or a gaggle of 13 year olds in a subway car.

There are, of course, plenty of bloggers who come across as perfectly pleasant, perhaps even charming, sorts. Josh Marshall, Kevin Drum, Ross Douthat, Noah Millman, Matt Yglesias, even crazy old Andrew Sullivan when he’s not busy running down nefarious Fifth Columns. All the same, though, of the 27-or-so-million blogs currently out there, a shockingly high number seem designed to make a man’s eyes bleed. In just a few short years the medium has turned from a province of whimsical amateurism to a game ranch stacked with semi-pro blowhards.

It took old media over 500 years, from the advent of the printing press on down through to the present day to produce so magnificent a bore as, say, Frank Rich. In under a decade the blogosphere has managed to match them. This impresses even as it horrifies. We the people have found our voice, and Christ if we aren’t some tiresome bastards.

Perhaps when so many people come down so hard on blogging it's CW. Then again, perhaps when so many people come down so hard on blogging it's blogging.

Posted 8:31 AM by Gene

We supsected when the former LORD KOPPEL OF ESPNCORP left His Holy Empire He would engage on a Crusade to tell THE TRUTH, and by God is He telling it.

But answer us this, Your Lordship: if Iraq is "about oil", couldn't we say Your "memorial" to the soldiers there was about opposing the war -- and THE SWEEPS?

Posted 8:22 AM by Gene

What do "American Express, AT&T, Careerbuilder.com, Coca-Cola Co., Dyson, General Motors Corp., Kodak, MasterCard, Masterfoods, J.C. Penney Co., McDonald's, Miller, L'Oreal, and Procter & Gamble Co." have in common?

Their CEOs will ALL say...oh, never mind.

Posted 8:18 AM by Gene

We're of two minds of this business of punishing offensive political speech. On the one hand, it's PC and heavy-handed. On the other hand, it couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.

Posted 8:10 AM by Gene

GROSS. No, that's not the word. EVIL. Well, that's pretty good, but really it doesn't quite sum up these crimes. SUBHUMAN. Closer.

Posted 5:55 PM by Gene

ADVERTISEMENT of the DAY:

H&R Block Inc., the company that helps millions of Americans complete tax returns, said late Thursday that it got its own taxes wrong in recent years.

The Kansas City, Mo.-based company said it will restate results for fiscal years 2004 and 2005, plus previous 2006 quarters, mainly because of errors in calculating its state effective income tax rate. The mistakes understated H&R Block's state income tax liability by about $32 million as of the end of April, 2005, the company added.

The restatements will knock 7 cents a share off 2005 fiscal-year earnings and 2 cents a share of fiscal 2004 results, the company said.

Figures; they even spell their name wrong too.

Posted 5:23 PM by Gene

Occasionally even JONAH may be on to something:

HOW CIVILIZATIONS CRUMBLE [Jonah Goldberg]

This reader is on to something:

The downfall of civilization can be traced directly to the practice of putting televisions in taverns. Men stopped talking to one another. Then they went home and started talking to their wives to whom they hadn’t talked in centuries. This led immediately to wholesale divorce, which in turn led to women in the workplace and juvenile delinquency. Other ills too numerous and horrible to mention followed until men stopped wearing ties so they wouldn’t hang themselves.

Posted at 04:25 PM

Posted 5:14 PM by Gene

Is this disaster in Nigeria the wave of the future?

Posted 5:11 PM by Gene

When USAOKAY!!!!! uses the loaded word "tolerance" twice in three days it's an argument for running SUPER BOWL AD PROMOS ALL YEAR.

Posted 5:09 PM by Gene

Neanderthals in Europe were killed off by the advance of modern humans thousands of years earlier than previously believed, losing a competition for food and shelter, according to a scientific study published Wednesday.

We are very tempted to say something, but it would be politically incorrect.

Posted 5:08 PM by Gene

Every year the Feds declare the Mafia dead, so why is it they always seem to indict more of them?

Posted 5:04 PM by Gene

New Orleans' Uninsured Get Primitive Care

The best thing they can do is get out of the way, so we can build a largely uninhabited theme park for the rich.

Posted 5:01 PM by Gene

Though they do not end until Sunday we thus officially say goodbye to THE GAMES, with their boredom, their preening, their good sportsmanship, their marketing, and above all their irrelevance.

Posted 11:40 AM by Gene

Math -- the RUPERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! way:

"They're promoting the number that is most advantageous for them to promote, but the simple fact is that only a fraction of the registered users ever go back," said Elliot. "And only a fraction of them use the site on any kind of regular basis, and then another fraction of them are responsible for the traffic."

And a fraction of a fraction of a fraction is worth -- $580 MILLION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Part of what killed Friendster according to Elliot, was its own success. Once everyone knew about it, no one wanted to hang out there.

Yogi Berra was right.

(Via IWantMedia.com)

Posted 10:03 AM by Gene

The pixels hadn't faded on Gallup's downbeat report when Slate.com columnist Daniel Grossman chimed in with another requiem, "Twilight of the Blogs." Grossman says....

Sure we don't need blogs, Sun-Times?

(Via the inevitable Romy -- and Eric Zorn didn't notice either. So much for newspaper blogs.)

Posted 9:41 AM by Gene

Tom Freston (remember that name) CELEBRATES:

Ratings are flat to down at most of the cable networks, but that performance "does not make any real impact at all in terms of the kind of [ad] revenue that we can bring in," Freston said.

Because THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF WILLFULLY IGNORANT ADVERTISERS can do ANYTHING with OUR MONEY!

Posted 8:55 AM by Gene

An eighty-something GETS DOWN!!!!!

I really think this recalls the golden days of AOL, KING RICHARD.

(Via IWantMedia.com)

Posted 8:36 AM by Gene

We would say, let both sides shoot each other, but the problem in too much of history is letting both sides shoot each other.

Posted 7:45 PM by Gene

OOOOOOOOOoooooooooooh, the hick forces of EEEEEEEEEEEEEEVIL in South Dakota....

For all their satire of RED COUNTRY the Coasts teach us daily that geography does not equal smarts.

Posted 7:44 PM by Gene

Wayne might have been better off gambling.

Posted 6:13 PM by Gene

More hopeful news in the media BIZ:

Viacom Profit Falls 67 Percent in First Report Since Splitting From CBS

Posted 5:47 PM by Gene

Here's one reason THE GAMES aren't drawing an audience: we have no rooting interest. Back when (and I must mention her again) the ethereally beautiful Peggy Fleming became an American sweetheart THE GAMES were still in the realm of hopeful star-gazing amateurs who really did represent their countries; and from Berlin on THE GAMES were nothing if not xenophobically political, whatever their faked universalist view. Now players can play for anybody -- look at the alleged hockey tournaments -- and love of country can hardly rank when the moving force behind so many of these would-be stars is love of ENDORSEMENTS. It is nonsense to say THE GAMES have thus been morally polluted; any outfit that can bring on the likes of AVERY BRANDAGE [sic] is rotten to the core, and such craven genius intensified the ultimate UEBERROTHING of THE GAMES, so now we have the best of two bad worlds: an intensely fake show of political naivete with a hidden evil smirk, and even more intense MARKETING.

It's healthy that we shouldn't root for these GAMES' latest Wheaties-box models. They only represent themselves. Far better to honor the true patriot soldiers in harm's way in Iraq, who work without the meaningless beckoning glow of a gold medal, but do more than their weight in gold.

Posted 5:42 PM by Gene

When news hacks plead for tolerance, you can be sure another DAVID "JERK" GREGORY-style meltdown is not too far away.

Posted 5:41 PM by Gene

SF Chron: US needs to do everything possible to help Carroll

Including a donation of some of our industry's big fat profit margin?

Oh, I'm sorry -- U.S., not US.

Posted 5:37 PM by Gene

Whew! Now we news hacks have an excuse:

Far-right UK party to print Muslim cartoon

Posted 5:31 PM by Gene

Oh, please. There have been threats of strikes in show-biz before, and even when these self-righteous heroes do strike it doesn't put the slightest dent in their money machine. So please strike, and strike as long as you can, though we realize we'll get nothing out of it.

Posted 5:28 PM by Gene

G000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000GFLE does the Bill-philanthropy shtick, presumably so it can do more of that money-minting shtick in C---a.

Posted 5:26 PM by Gene

UMass honors Nelson Mandela with honorary degree

The new head of Hahvahd Mutual Fund?

Posted 5:19 PM by Gene

Given how con-SER-va-tives are root-root-rooting for the Dubai team it makes us wonder whether we've jumped to conclusions. Perhaps DP World is a responsible, well-managed company. Perhaps it has earned the right to run our ports. But there is the one-percent rule. Its newly acquired division employs 22,000. And sorry, we can't forget whose side its home territory took before the war in Afghanistan.

Posted 5:19 PM by Gene

Something else we need: high-end NBA thugwear.

Posted 5:17 PM by Gene

Just what we need -- another TV network...from RUPERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The American Society of Willfully Ignorant Advertisers is going NUTS.

Posted 5:16 PM by Gene

TRANSLATION: With their regular movie display advertising waving byebye news hacks try to toady their way back into the biz' esteem -- and produce mountains of JUNK in the process.

Posted 5:52 PM by Gene

The problem is, Jack -- and we're tired of pointing this out, especially to an audience of two -- advertising is not about selling products, it's about financing junk television, and financing fiefdoms, and financing luxury suites at the SUPER BORE paid three-month vacations at THE GAMES. If it were about selling anything these same companies whose CEOs must flout their Hollywood and sports connections would probably not have to lay off so many people.

Posted 5:37 PM by Gene

How many good things have fights with landlords ended?

Posted 5:30 PM by Gene

We suspect the news hacks will go overboard doing their patriotic duty the next few days, as any threat to their ecosystem is a threat to their jobs, and what's good for GE BANCORP and REALTY is GOOD FOR AMERICA.

Posted 5:23 PM by Gene

Meantime THE CORNER is coming out in full-DEEFENSE mode for Dubya and his port decision, presumably because that kind of hard-core con-SER-va-tive never knew a hundred-thousand-dollar bill it didn't like.

And in the realm of good advice:

Florida's governor says he thinks criticism by some Congress members is unwarranted because his brother....

Thanks a lot, Jeb.

(Sorry for the NewsMAX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

Posted 5:18 PM by Gene

[T]his blend of intuitive conservatism and open-minded cosmopolitanism....

TRANSLATION: What Dow 36,000 really really really wants to be is what he already is: an exceptionally smug laissez-faire-free-enterprise gliberTARian who's pro-choice and pro moral turpitude generally.

Posted 5:13 PM by Gene

Scott Pelley auditions for David Gregory's temper:

"There is virtually no disagreement in the scientific community any longer about global warming. ...It would be difficult to find a scientist worth his salt in this subject who would suggest this wasn't happening. It would probably be someone whose grant has been funded by someone who finds reducing fossil fuel emissions detrimental to their own interests." [As excerpted by the invincible Romy]

We don't trust BigOil either, not at its prices. But this is the same outfit that created the ALAR scare, so let us say we don't trust VIACON/CBS Network News either.

Posted 5:11 PM by Gene

That business with the ports has finally gathered critical mass, which means it's time for monkey business to accompany the business:

Democrats see a national security opening

Sure. And with your help you can open it wider.

Posted 10:02 AM by Gene

Beware the news hack who wants to make his job a "mission." Before this guy was the late unlamented John Carroll and his OMERTA -- I mean code. We saw a mission last week when the hacks tried to ferret out all sorts of truths from THE CHENEY MASSACRE that weren't there. When news hacks go on a mission, it's like to be a CRUSADE.

(Via the inevitable ROMY)

Posted 9:47 AM by Gene

The fellow who runs the stub end of Hahvahd Mutual Fund is quitting. We might feel slightly sad but then Hahvahd ceased being about education a long time ago.

Posted 7:40 PM by Gene

And in looking up the phrase "30 Rock" I came across this mighty demonstration of the power of blogs in general and KOS'S in particular: It seemed Timmy Russert or Tiny Chris Matthews said something stupid (as if that's unusual), so....

I am also proposing a mass picket of NBC at 30 Rock for February 20, 2006. That is President's Day, and most of you will have a day off. We can meet at a certain time and a certain place and then proceed to 30 Rock with our signs and our voices. I propose that everyone have a spot of orange somewhere on their bodies so we can identify one another.

We have to show them we mean business and that we are not to be taken lightly. Maybe we can also invite some notable people (aka celebs, politicians and the like) to join us as we walk around 30 Rock. I am serious about this. I'll organize this effort. Are you in?

Yeeeaaarrrggghhhhhh!!

Dr. Dean's acolyte further says "NBC is owned by GE, which is a mammoth defense contractor", which proves how much the Kossacks know. (In FY2005 Humana Inc. did more defense business than GEB&R.)

Posted 7:36 PM by Gene

They're getting desperate at 30 Rock:

TURIN, Italy - We’ve been so busy during the first week of the Olympics chronicling the failures of the U.S. Olympic Team and obsessing over the medal count that we haven’t even noticed the biggest American story of these or any other Winter Games.

Try this on for size: The United States could win.

I’m not talking about winning a speedskating race or a medal in figure skating. I’m talking about the whole darned shooting match.

1. The only GE BANCORP and REALTY employee who is officially cleared to discuss shooting matches is DAVID "JERK" GREGORY. 2. Isn't this obsession with winning medals one possible reason people have been unwatching THE GAMES in droves?

Posted 7:04 PM by Gene

PETER BISKIND STRIKES AGAIN: "[A] professor of history and public policy at The George Washington University" sez that because "some of the best movies ever made were created in the 1970s!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" that decade was a Statue of Liberty among the ages.

Yeah. A great decade that gave us Watergate, the Cambodian genocide, Gerry, Jimmah, stagflation, holy cockroaches and disco -- and SOME OF THE BEST MOVIES EVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

TRANSLATION: He's a Peter Biskind for policy wonks.

Out three months and 26,105 on Amazon.com -- and doing worse than Peter's masterwork after seven years! From now on, we'll stick with suck-ups we know.

Posted 2:10 PM by Gene

"There is a human element here that got lost in the perfect storm of people who don't like Cheney," he explained. "They don't like hunting. They don't like guns. They don't like people who kill birds and eat them. I mean, good grief."

What did I say last week?

(Sorry for the NewsMAX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

Posted 1:31 PM by Gene

If the stories of Bode (or should we call him B0de) and "Hot-Dog" Jacobellis didn't signal the true meaning of THE GAMES, here comes a raid on the Austrians.

Posted 11:55 AM by Gene

We are sorry to learn that Curt Gowdy has died. He was avuncular in the very best sense. We remember how Reggie Jackson hit the light stanchion during the '71 All-Star Game in Detroit because of him. Now all we have are loudmouths.

Posted 11:35 AM by Gene

The United States cannot be defeated militarily," the briefing says, "the enemy knows this. But consider ... terror attacks weaken the world economy. Continued casualties weaken national resolve. Traditional allies prefer accommodation."

The enemy has "inherent weaknesses," including "no military capacity to expand their fight beyond terrorist tactics."

"Marginalizing an ideology requires patience and promoting reform from within," the briefing said.

Although it is similar to the Cold War, the war on terror has a distinction.

"We cannot discredit all of Islam as we did with communism," the document says. "It is a divine religion. We can only discredit the violent extremist."

"Americans will commit to a 'long war' if ... they are confident our leaders know what they are doing."

Do they?

Posted 11:14 AM by Gene

In light of the Cretins of Mountain View's latest technological marvel, and in pondering three recent articles on blogging's worth (or lack thereof), I have taken a few days off from typing snappy rejoinders to news stories. I am tired of writing for nobody, and certainly not for money; and what is worse, I'm wasting my time at it (even though I'm filling in time I'd otherwise spend twiddling my thumbs), and all of this keyboard pulverizing is like radio waves blasted into space, never to be picked up again. I suppose I shall resume tomorrow, but the futility and ephemerality of blogging hang over me more than ever, and as I've said before, if I could make money writing, and writing for hard copy, I'd stop this glorified diary-making in the proverbial New York minute.

Posted 10:18 AM by Gene

I don't know what to do. I guess after this latest destestable screw-up I may be stuck with Blogger anyway. I tried posting to a WordPress blog but having to type in a heading every time is very annoying and limiting, and I don't like the look of my blog, or the fact everything seems so spread out on the page. You win, Larry and Sergey. Subject me to more glitches and inconveniences.

Posted 11:30 AM by Gene

What is with USAOKAY!!!!!? Has it become the Official Paper of NASCAR? This rag has run dozens of stories of thousands of words each. Now it's promoing Jeff Gordon into a movie actor. Could it be one reason we've gotten sick and tired of THE GAMES is that BIGMEDIA PROMO THEM to death?

Posted 9:37 AM by Gene

Maybe if Spin magazine were a Web site it could sell for $100 million too!

(Via MediaBistro.com)

Posted 9:05 AM by Gene

And speaking of bubbles, I think someone's planning a mystery novel about the murder of a guy named -- Daniel Gross:

The Gullible Latecomers: In the end stages of any investment mania, the clueless and the greedy flood in. You know things are really poised for a fall when people who have no management experience and feeble business plans somehow manage to raise cash for ventures. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you: Pajamas Media. Last November, the collection of right-wing blogs (with a few lefties thrown in for laughs) grandly announced the closing of a $3.5 million round of venture capital financing. Roger Simon, the screenwriter-turned-blogger who is the CEO of the enterprise, promised "to change the way people report and access news and commentary." I don't know. It looks to me like a bunch of blogs with their own logo.

SAM LITTLE!!!!! Time to take on THE VAST LEFT-WING CONSPIRACY!!!!!

Posted 8:57 AM by Gene

$100 MILLION for THIS piece of junk?

That's okay; these are the same clowns who first told the world the DONALD's worth $500 gigazillion.

Posted 8:38 AM by Gene

How many stores does the world need to sell patch cords and cell-phone calling plans?

Posted 8:33 AM by Gene

PINCH has a new talent:

WEEKEND DESK / June 26, 2087
Film: 'Dragnet,' Parody of Television Series
By Vincent Canby

He's able to get dead writers to work again -- eighty years into the future!

(We found this after clicking on a link in Ben Brantley's scathing review of Barefoot in the Park, in which we're led to ask, how many producers does it take to make a show as exciting as "watching paint dry"?)

Posted 8:22 AM by Gene

Meantime, elsewhere in LALA's site, another story painfully reminds us that once people came to see movies, and they saw them in something other than a Dolbyized® box, and it was reasonably expected they'd be made by humans.

Posted 8:20 AM by Gene

The Visual Effects Awards may sound like a geekfest. But they also give a glimpse of the Hollywood to come.

TRANSLATION: If you think the movies are video games now....

Posted 6:39 AM by Gene

And now the dread M word comes to the fore: makegoods. Here's betting the ladies come to the rescue. But I can't recall when the GE BANCORP and REALTY GAMES were less engaging, and justly so. Has the public appeal of skeleton and luge been overplayed? Do we care what Canadians do with brooms?

Posted 6:38 AM by Gene

Sir Carl's bid "falters"! King Richard LIVES! All hail the KING!

Nice of you to run an HBO ad with that, TWXSTERS.

Posted 8:19 PM by Gene

Where your Wal-Mart savings go, not to mention your G000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000GLE and Yah000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000! clicks.

Posted 8:14 PM by Gene

It looks like the Organization for an Eighth-Century World and its friends will be running the League of Nations's Human Rights Farce a little while longer.

Posted 5:42 PM by Gene

And while the hacks were screaming over buckshot, did you hear about the company from the United Arab Emirates ("one of only three countries to recognize the now-toppled Taliban as Afghanistan's legitimate government") Dubya allowed to help run our nation's biggest ports?

Does the name Chandra Levy ring a bell?

Posted 5:18 PM by Gene

RIAA aims to ban CD ripping

Hey greedmeisters who disgorge that junk you call "MUSIC", why not go whole-hog and ban PCs?

(Via Topix.net)

Posted 5:09 PM by Gene

For once Little Howie Hairshirt says something truthful, however accidentally:

The Wall Street Journal editorial page, which ran 4,726 editorials on Whitewater, mocks the Cheney story.

We could mock The Wall Street Journals 4,726 times just for being The Wall Street Journals.

(Via the perennially hyper Michelle)

Posted 5:06 PM by Gene

But the findings could fuel anger among Arabs already incensed by images of abuse of Iraqi inmates at Baghdad's U.S.-run Abu Ghraib prison newly broadcast by Australian television.

When does reporting turn into hopeful thinking?

Posted 5:04 PM by Gene

Dell's Profit Rises 52% as PC Shipments Reach Record

So much for all that whining by a certain blogger about customer service.

Posted 2:55 PM by Gene

"Fame is almost a poison."

Whassa madda Bode? That cover-story hemlock getting to you?

Don't worry too much, Bode -- not too many people will see you, despite our success in stupid cold-weather imitations of surfing.

Posted 2:44 PM by Gene

We wish we'd seen this yesterday: Ford, which will be 103 in June and whose share price reflects it, is getting out its low-riding pants (or whatever they call those things with the crotches that drag to the ground) and sponsoring an Hispanic [C]RAP show on ESPNCORP Radio, which should add tons to its sales.

The effort is a "big part of us continuing to build a dialogue with the market,” said Dave Rodriguez, multicultural marketing communications manager [!] of Ford division.

Sorry Dave, a big part of your market stopped speaking to you when you built rattletraps.

Posted 2:34 PM by Gene

We may ask if that defining monument of news CW, the In the News section of Yahoo!'s home page, isn't a Democratic party front. Every time I hit the page I see "Democratic" this, "Democrats" that. We may easily explain it: the hacks' only sources are Democrats. But aren't they carrying their obsession into the realm of the mental hospital?

Posted 2:04 PM by Gene

I hope bloggers don't get too entranced with traffic and ad revenues, although they are addictive in a way. It should still be fun - and a blog with a hundred readers can be just as effective in what it does as one with a million.

Let's see you trade your fan club for a hundred, Mr. Lachrymose.

(Via the Professor, who doesn't seem to have read that article in New York, despite citing it.)

Posted 1:48 PM by Gene

News hacks have one big reason it will be a month of Sundays before the secret inhabitants of the Black Box on Pennsylvania Avenue do another interview:

DAVID GREGORY!!!!!!!!!!

Most V.I.P.'s in trouble choose the safe waters of Larry King on CNN to do damage control.

What is the difference between doing a softball interview with BRIT and doing a softball interview with LARRY except the latter is NEWS HACK-APPROVED?

Posted 11:04 AM by Gene

XM Satellite Fan Flees Cash Furnace

60 trillion for the Lord Goddess Oprah, a zillion for sports rights -- yes I'd say this is a very prudently run business.

And we're not counting the King of Lilliput, whoever he is.

Posted 10:52 AM by Gene

That BIG piece of PEOPLE WARNER-G000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000GLE... SYNERGY'S PAYING OFF:

'THE SOPRANOS' USE GOOGLE MAPS TO PROMOTE NEW SEASON

Larry and Sergey, why don't you off a few dissidents?

Posted 10:32 AM by Gene

Would the world love us any more if Bernie Sanders or Dennis Kookcinich were president?

Posted 10:31 AM by Gene

U.N. report urges Gitmo shutdown

I'm sure we will.

The report's findings were based on interviews with former detainees, public documents, media reports, lawyers and a questionnaire filled out by the U.S. government.

Definitive!

Posted 6:43 AM by Gene

How many other professional college basketball coaches drink?

Posted 6:40 AM by Gene

Hmm, look who's benefited from lobbying trickery -- a staffer of Sen. O'SPECTER!

We must have written this story with great reluctance; this supreme expert on Scottish law was what every Republican should be. But the earmarks were there, all shaped like dollar signs.

Posted 6:36 AM by Gene

KnightRidder's hacks are putting in a bid for some of its papers.

If they win it will be the lunatics running the asylum -- and losing money to boot.

Posted 5:35 PM by Gene

Sorry to pose this question, but: Would jernalistic organizations pay a ransom to release a captive reporter?

Given their actions of the last several weeks, we can guess the answer.

Posted 5:17 PM by Gene

The bad news, starting at COMEDY CENTRAL NEWS NETWORK:

Among the other [potential] shows: a vehicle for politically incorrect comedian Sarah Silverman and Lewis Black's Red State Diaries. If that flies, it would be the third spin-off from The Daily Show after Steven Colbert's The Colbert Report.

The very bad news, for its "parent" MTV Networks:

[MTV Networks prez Michael] Wolf is crafting a plan with Honda Motor Co. to market cars to younger buyers across all MTV platforms. (Advertising brings in 60% of MTV revenues; distribution fees, 30%; consumer products, 10%.) "Advertisers would rather connect with that one alpha consumer [young trendsetter] vs. three beta consumers," he says. "We understand that audience, and we can help them do that."

The good news, for SUMNER:

Shares have been flat, at about $42, since the new Viacom began trading on its own on Jan. 3.

Knowing the hideous consequences, it's outfits like SUMNER's that explain why we want BIGMEDIA to fail.

Posted 5:12 PM by Gene

This gag makes no sense. What's the purpose of a virtual store if people can find the same things at home on their computers? Indeed having a brick-and-mortar store with no goods would seem to combine the worst of the Web with the worst of conventional retailing. And what's the fun of shopping without the goods? Or returning them, for that matter?

And here's the rub:

The store coincides with the company's exclusive retail sponsorship of the Academy Awards.

Translation: We're doing this so our top executives can say, "I WAS AT THE OSCARS® AND YOU WEREN'T!" (Sorry for violating my rule.)

Posted 5:02 PM by Gene

And speaking of bad-taste South Park Con-SER-Va-Tives:

It's not THE VICE PRESDENT [SIC!!!!!] OF THE UNITED STATES AND AN ACCIDENT HE TRIED TO HIDE!

When KLo uses caps that means I shouldn't.

Posted 3:22 PM by Gene

Vice-President Inside said he's sorry (and no doubt Brit kissed him on the forehead to ease the pain), but this won't stop the questions, because Mr. Inside has become a hermetically-sealed pompous ass.

Posted 3:15 PM by Gene

Republicans Criticize Bush Mideast Policy

Though the moderate Chafee and Hagel, a frequent GOP maverick, are less conservative than many of their Republican colleagues.... [Seventh graf.]

SIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH....

Posted 2:59 PM by Gene

One of the drawbacks, as Spectator readers know full well, of being a "South Park Conservative" is a chronic lack of taste...

...and Corner readers, and Free Republic readers, and Ann Coulter readers, and TCS Daily readers, and....

Posted 2:22 PM by Gene

BIGINTERNET sent lobbyists and PR types.

Okay guys, that's over. Back to collaboration as usual.

Posted 2:08 PM by Gene

We can guess what another kind of effete snob -- the second rate o-pe-RA cri-TIC -- wants from the opera house: "the Stephen Sondheim musical 'A Little Night Music'" (despite the fact it "didn't do as well at the box office as expected and left a large deficit"), a "provocative intellectual approach of using opera as a lens for the exploration of social issues", and above all, "a heavy dose of controversial fare." He does NOT want music, and especially not good music, and even if he did there's hardly an army of Bizets and Puccinis knocking down the Met's doors to provide it. In the end we'll get more Jerry Springers and Nixon in Chinas, and the aging opera crowd will get angrier and smaller, and opera will join other art forms in total dust-collecting irrelevance.

(Via the INEVITABLE ArtsJournal.com)

Posted 1:44 PM by Gene

I'm of two minds about this article. Clearly the Web is breeding a new kind of selfishness. (It's certainly creating a new kind of caste system with bloggers.) Yes, with so many people creating what they suppose to be culture through rapidly obsolescing means a large part of it is going down the memory rat hole. And we would be right to fear weakened mass media -- if they did things worth doing. But since when have the likes of RUPERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! "discover[ed], nurture[d], and reward[ed] elite talent"? All they're developing is elitist talent, with an aptitude for telling us how inferior we are, and a further aptitude of accreting guano in our minds.

And if blogging's such a scourge why do you have a blog -- and a PODCAST?

Posted 1:10 PM by Gene

The American Society of Willfully Ignorant Advertisers was praying for this day: the number inventors of Nielsen will now measure college campuses -- which has more than a few people agitated:

Agencies admit they are in danger of drowning under a flood of research. Buyers are grappling with the value of viewers watching shows via digital video recorders such as TiVo. Nielsen began providing data about DVR playback in December, as networks argued these viewers have been undercounted until now. Agencies say viewers are more likely to skip commercials using DVRs and therefore they shouldn’t have to pay for additional rating points.

“College viewing, coupled with DVR ratings, and the arrival of the CW will be a whole new set of headaches for us,” said one senior agency research chief.

But isn't this what you CLOWNS wanted -- more measurements to prove more people were watching more hours so you could waste more of OUR money financing MORE JUNK TELEVISION?

Posted 1:08 PM by Gene

EXCELLENT NEWS: A new methodology for measuring newspaper circulation reveals it might be -- worse than we thought:

Consider the Los Angeles Times. The September FAS-FAX shows that the paper's best circ day is Friday with 990,904 copies. The paper's most sluggish day is Tuesday with 780,957. That's a spread of 200,947 copies. The Chicago Tribune's gap between its best and worst weekday is even wider. On Friday, the paper's circ is 684,664. On Monday, it's 464,415 -- a difference of 220,249 copies.

The question is, if so many people can do without papers on one or two days of the week, why not the whole week?

Posted 1:02 PM by Gene

OH oh:

U.S. Stocks Fail to Rise on Bernanke's Congressional Debut

Let's bring the WIZARD out from his VERY WEALTHY RETIREMENT!

Posted 1:00 PM by Gene

Imagine a man apologizing to another man.

Now imaging the other man getting down and kissing the apologist's shoes.

Vice-President BigOil "apologizes" on Rush Limbaugh.

P. S. He beat me to it -- FOX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!NEWS!

Posted 10:49 AM by Gene

"Humor" at the Corner:

GOOD POINT [Jonah Goldberg]

A reader suggests that we track down what Helen Thomas wrote when Aaron Burr shot Alexander Hamilton and see if she's more biased against Cheney.

Posted at 10:36 AM

Pffh-hh-hh!

Posted 10:14 AM by Gene

LUKE SPIELBERG should run for office; like Congresspoops he has lots of experience making billions out of fantasies, and fantasies out of billions.

Posted 8:48 AM by Gene

WASHINGTON -- In a blistering critique of the trade relationship between the U.S. and China, the nation's top trade warrior told Beijing that it was time to end the Asian industrial giant's free ride.

This is the lead story on a news site. Nothing unusual but consider the site. If it weren't for airplanes and maybe one or two other types of capital goods junk entertainment would be our lead export. Can we take pride in ourselves when insulting others' intelligence is what we do best?

Posted 8:43 AM by Gene

Now you done it veep -- you got ARI mad!

Posted 8:26 AM by Gene

While CURLEY'S (NYUK! NYUK! NYUK!) STOOGES work themselves into high blood pressure over the PERFIDY of the VICE-PRESIDENT, they get a chance to relax running another press release -- and raising OUR blood pressure.

The song, which debuted Tuesday on Howard Stern's satellite radio show....

A NEUHARTHISM OF THE WEEK TO ANOTHER ANONYMOUS HACK! Okay Curley, why is it we MUST know every last state secret but hiding your flacks with the no-byline gag is okay?

Posted 8:21 AM by Gene

On the day of THE HEARING -- which will likely be a big fat fizzle -- why can I say that these cute little we-wanna-sponsor-THE-BEIJING-GAMES thingies are getting on my nerves?

Posted 8:14 AM by Gene

Terry Teachout hugs himself over the Beatles. Granted they were better than average tunesmiths, but their success merged lawyers and marketing and pretentiousness, and the production tricks that seemed so with-it and now are ALL we have in pop music anymore. Terry also forgets that in 1964 there were still many different types of music. Now it's ONLY pop, and its destructive low-IQ sensibility. And whatever is charming about their best songs -- and they are -- is largely wiped out by the fact that we've heard them a trillion times, and will be forced to hear them a trillion more whether we want to or not. The difference between mediocrity then and mediocrity now is that with technology mediocrity is FOREVER.

Posted 6:35 AM by Gene

Overall, Time Inc.’s latest round of staff cuts is supposed to eliminate 26 editorial positions and 40 business-side jobs at the company. Some members of the staff have greeted the news—the second major reduction in two months—with anger. One pointed to New York magazine’s pay survey, which listed Time Warner chief executive Richard Parsons’ compensation at $23.5 million.

The King NEVER takes a salary cut.

Posted 6:32 AM by Gene

"'You ask the stupid questions, and I won't answer them.'"

Unfortunately, Vice-President Inside, there's a difference between answering stupid questions and answering no questions, and that's what makes people think you're in cahoots with big oil, and running your own government in hiding (aside from the fact that you are).

Dick's become the most untrustworthy veep since Spiro T. Agnew.

"I cannot believe he does not look back and say this should have been handled differently," said Vin Weber, a former Republican congressman from Minnesota who is close to the White House.

I can.

Here's what will happen: The Great Mr. Inside will come sulking into a room, growl a meaningless two-sentence statement, field four stupid questions, and go storming out in a tantrum, never to be seen in public again -- until he launches his new superdupermegalobbying group.

Posted 5:29 PM by Gene

SEN. AIRHEAD will advise BOOBS McKEATING to the WHITE HOUSE!

Maybe she'll get him more movie roles.

(Sorry for the NEWSMAX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

Posted 5:17 PM by Gene

The HIGHLY CRITICAL MOGUL'S FRIEND does a favor for a client -- er, buddy -- er, famous ac-TOR, presumably to raise his fees, so he can magnanimously cut them again and win applause from THE MOGUL'S FRIEND.

He and DICK "GUNS CAUSED COLUMBINE" CORLISS ought to form a publicity agency -- and get DICK SCHICK in on the gag.

Posted 5:03 PM by Gene

IOC warns Russians, Austrians on logos

They're not our sponsors. If they ponied the money up they could wear FULL-BODY LOGOS.

Posted 5:01 PM by Gene

What you think about Vice President Dick Cheney seems to determine your view of the hunting incident. [Photo caption]

What if we're very sorry this happened and can't stand Dick Cheney's guts?

Posted 4:59 PM by Gene

A Roone Arledge Lab with a Fred Friendly Newsroom will probably yield more Dan Blather News.

(Via the usual Romy)

Posted 3:16 PM by Gene

As we might expect from a MR. MARK cover boy, he's all talk and no ski.

Posted 2:51 PM by Gene

ALWAYS ON TOP OF THE STORY: CURLEY'S (NYUK! NYUK! NYUK!) STOOGES blazingly report that the news hacks' favorite social-club chairman (or whatever they call these "bishops" nowadays) is being treated for alcoholism -- almost a day after the Freepers disclosed the same thing.

And these clowns have the GUTS to scream at the WHITE HOUSE for HIDING a story?

Posted 1:35 PM by Gene

On this Valentine's Day it warms the cockles of our heart to learn of SUMNER's close and loving relationship with his son.

It couldn't have happened to a nicer, kinder, SWEETER tyrant.

Posted 9:45 AM by Gene

OH oh, maybe USAOKAY!!!!!'s annual sales orgy for the SUPER BORE ads doesn't help:

This year marketers snapped up last-minute ads at 40% discounts as ABC scrambled to sell a number of spots going into the weekend. Three-and-a-half minutes of advertising -- including at least two spots sold over the weekend -- went to ABC’s corporate siblings, making the Walt Disney Co. the second-biggest advertiser in the game.

It gets -- worse:

Imagine if Anheuser-Busch decreased its level of commitment -- the beer marketer has publicly said it will re-evaluate its Super Bowl strategy going forward.

And then:

[S]ome marketers believe the game’s blatant focus on advertising can kill a product’s cool factor.

We're not exactly sure house ads for ESPNCORP movies have a high cool factor to begin with.

Posted 9:40 AM by Gene

DUBYA spent $1.62 BILLION on ADVERTISING?!?!?!?!?!?

Well, actually it's mostly the armed forces, which are prime members of the American Society of Willfully Ignroant Advertisers anyway. And now Democrats are going WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!, meaning they must object to military recruiting, however misguided.

Posted 9:29 AM by Gene

St. Warren will not stand for reanointment to Coke's board as He is busy tending to His Heaven and definitely not because of some unholy conflicts of interest.

PRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAISE THE LORD!

Posted 9:18 AM by Gene

At the Westminster Dog Show, several awwwwwwwwwwwesome moments:

There was hardly a dry eye in the building in 2002 when 20 German shepherds and retrievers came onto the Garden’s green carpet to honor search and rescue dogs for their tireless work at the World Trade Center and Pentagon after the Sept. 11 attacks.

The Katrina tribute, featuring dogs and those that saved them, brought a standing ovation.

I'll join in by standing on hind legs and going ARF! ARF!

Posted 9:12 AM by Gene

"What is the use of getting angry for the sake of the Prophet when I have a thousand poor people in my neighborhood?"

Well, because it...lets off steam?

A United Nations report in September said the Arab world was unlikely to meet the world body's goals for cutting poverty, hunger and unemployment by 2015, partly because of the unequal distribution of wealth.

So we'll let 'em let off some steam.

Posted 8:44 AM by Gene

If you were a let-'em-eat-cake Congresspoop, which would you prefer: instituting a few tiny restrictions on wining and dining, or GIVING AWAY $100 BILLION IN TAX BREAKS?

Well, as a let-'em-eat-cake Congresspoop, YOU CAN DO BOTH!

Posted 6:53 AM by Gene

So -- Yahoo! can escape Congress's wrath because it owns just a small piece of the outfit that helps imprison dissidents!

Good luck!

Posted 6:30 AM by Gene

Someone has written a sympathetic biography of William Jennings Bryan. Though his chief claim to history is as the first (and only) three-time losing Presidential candidate for a major party --twice to William McKinley, the Dick Cheney of his day -- we remember him now because some first-string NEWS HACK with a striking resemblance to Gene Kelly painted Bryan as the apotheosis of intolerance, hence we remember him as some fantastical kook from a stage and movie lecture called Inherit the Wind, who looks amazingly like Fredric March and dies a Boothian death in public he never died. The truth might be different:

Readers of "A Godly Hero" will also get a fresh perspective on the Scopes Trial. Bryan, who paid scant attention to theological controversies, was "not a fundamentalist." He "burned only and always to see religion heal the world."

There was much to fix: Social Darwinists of the Gilded Age had turned the naturalist's ideas about "the survival of the fittest" into a tool of class hierarchy. By the 1920s, eugenicists were hoping to harness evolution and purify the race by sterilizing the weak.

Kazin persuasively shows that Bryan's real crusade in Tennessee was not against free inquiry (he never opposed altogether the teaching of evolution), but against the enormous condescension of scientists who knew what was best for ordinary people - the same battle, in other words, that Bryan fought throughout his life.

But that's news hacks: nothing ever gets in their way of their desire to tell a good story -- THEIR story.

P. S. The first-string NEWS HACK largely kept his clattering typewriter shut about the Nazis as he shared their ethnicity.

(Corrected 1/29/2007 to correct a boneheaded mistake: I thought Spencer Tracy played THE VILLAIN.)

Posted 6:27 AM by Gene

Now we're "said" to be linking the Red-State Scorpion to the EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEVIL Dr. Rove.

We suspect much of this is like linking him to Dubya -- his face appears way in a photo background, and still we can say he appeared WITH him. News hacks stretching the truth to convict Dubya is not that much different from the Red-State Scorpion stretching the laws to help his friends.

Posted 7:10 PM by Gene

A former high mucky-muck at PEOPLE WARNER makes a startling admission:

AA: You started in publishing 35 years ago; what’s different about the business now?

Mr. Logan: Too many magazines. Everybody needs to prune their portfolio a little bit. Go out to a newsstand and there’s so many out there jammed in that it’s hard to find them. And most of the magazines are not very good ... they just throw things together thinking they can generate some advertising.

We would talk pots and kettles but will instead wish Mr. Logan a happy retirement.

Posted 5:13 PM by Gene

ARTICLES of the DAY: Here's one that suggests annual check-ups are "almost worthless" and a financial waste. Here's another that suggests we make juries professional as the amateurs don't know what the hell they're doing.

How much of what we must improve we can't because we're such creatures of bad habits?

Posted 5:11 PM by Gene

What's the difference between the GAMES and political conventions?

The GAMES have an audience.

Posted 4:59 PM by Gene

Hacks continue to glamorize graffiti because with their salaries and in their hermetically-sealed luxury news suites they are protected from the street, from reality, and from the anger of their readers.

This and the cartoon fiasco are common progeny of the same unthinking tramps.

Posted 10:44 AM by Gene

In a typically Neuharthian USAOKAY!!!!! puff piece on MySpace.com that mentions RUPERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! in the TENTH graf comes this interesting tidbit:

That's not to say there aren't problems. MySpace employs a staff of about 12 who do nothing but look at all 1.5 million images uploaded each day for inappropriate photos, including pornography. Advertisers are sensitive about the content their brands appear with, DeWolfe says. Despite their efforts, some illicit images still get through [SIC]

We wonder why the RUPE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! is so touchy about inappropriate photos given that the reverse Robin Hoods of MADAVE can't control their joyous compulsion to finance anything and everything of His. P. S. This has to be one of the worst jobs in the Web.

P. S. This puff piece happily doesn't mention that sensational murder either. A NEUHARTHISM OF THE WEEK AWARD TO MATT!

Posted 8:43 AM by Gene

By all appearances, the blog boom is the most democratized revolution in media ever. Starting a blog is ridiculously cheap; indeed, blogging software and hosting can be had for free online. There are also easy-to-use ad services that, for a small fee, will place advertisements from major corporations on blogs, then mail the blogger his profits. Blogging, therefore, should be the purest meritocracy there is. It doesn’t matter if you’re a nobody from the sticks or a well-connected Harvard grad. If you launch a witty blog in a sexy niche, if you’re good at scrounging for news nuggets, and if you’re dedicated enough to post around the clock—well, there’s nothing separating you from the big successful bloggers, right? I can do that.

In theory, sure. But if you talk to many of today’s bloggers, they’ll complain that the game seems fixed. They’ve targeted one of the more lucrative niches—gossip or politics or gadgets (or sex, of course)—yet they cannot reach anywhere close to the size of the existing big blogs. It’s as if there were an A-list of a few extremely lucky, well-trafficked blogs—then hordes of people stuck on the B-list or C-list, also-rans who can’t figure out why their audiences stay so comparatively puny no matter how hard they work. “It just seems like it’s a big in-party,” one blogger complained to me. (Indeed, a couple of pranksters last spring started a joke site called Blogebrity and posted actual lists of the blogs they figured were A-, B-, and C-level famous.)

That’s a lot of inequality for a supposedly democratic medium.

Whoever said blogging was democratic?

And we can figure Adam would run after a chimera given that blogging's popularity with Web surfers may be down.

P. S. None of the MMMMMMMMMMSSSSSSSSSSBBBBBBBBBBs (that's MAINSTREAM BLOGGERS) have paid attention to this story, which proves discussing the caste system of blogging hits a little too close to their treasured castles in the thin hot air.

P. P. S. There is one way to even the blogging playing field a little: for more of the big name Web sites to do what WaPost has done -- link to blogs that link to their stories.

Posted 8:34 AM by Gene

WOW!!!!!!!!!! THE WIZARD OF OZ has touched his balloon down in midtown Manhattan to write BORING MEMOIRS FOR ZILLIONS!!!!!!!!!!

There MUST be something up.

In the memoir field, Robert Rubin, who served as Treasury secretary under President Clinton, snagged $3.2 million for his book. Most expect a Greenspan book to command far more.

And we all know how memorable that book was, right JAKE?

Posted 8:18 AM by Gene

A brilliant idea: High schools are issuing multimedia yearbook supplements. Let's see how many can be played in time for the twentieth-year reunion.

Posted 8:12 PM by Gene

Old figure skaters never die; they go to networks and become "analysts."

We won't make fun here however -- certainly not when we can recall the ethereally beautiful Peggy Fleming. There are worse fates than being a figure skater-turned-"analyst."

Posted 8:06 PM by Gene

The author Peter Benchley, descendant of a long-lived literary dynasty already somewhat forgotten -- his grandfather was Robert Benchley, the now-unfunny "humorist" -- has died at 65. One wonders how his career would have progressed without a certain LEGENDARY direc-TOR:

Thanks to Benchley's 1974 novel, and Steven Spielberg's blockbuster movie of the same name, the simple act of ocean swimming became synonymous with fatal horror, of still water followed by ominous, pumping music, then teeth and blood and panic.

''Spielberg certainly made the most superb movie; Peter was very pleased,'' Wendy Benchley told The Associated Press.

''But Peter kept telling people the book was fiction, it was a novel, and that he no more took responsibility for the fear of sharks than Mario Puzo took responsibility for the Mafia.''

And ol' Luke has proved in more recent days that he cannot discern fiction from non-fiction, and has spread the contagion to his audience. We agree, Mrs. Benchley; your husband was blameless.

Posted 8:04 PM by Gene

Sadly, this battle between Ford and Chevy isn't over who's selling more cars, but who's managing to avoid selling fewer of them.

Posted 5:36 PM by Gene

We may presume the hacks will make A LOT of this story, as this is THE FORCE OF EVIL, and also because it's HUNTING, and WE HATE GUNS, and we don't know ANYTHING about them, which allows us to revel in our ignorance.

Indeed we may presume there's a lot of smiling among the hacks, as we not only can paint the Vice-President as a lummox (as if we don't think with three-tenths of a brain and type with 27 fingers), but chuckle (obliquely) that he did physical damage (however slight, we hope) to another human being, something that we could NEVER EVER do -- except when ENDING UNJUST WARS.

Posted 3:13 PM by Gene

Curley's (Nyuk! Nyuk! Nyuk!) Stooges SPINNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN:

Senators: Cheney Should Be Probed in Leak

Or as the Stooges SHOULD say,

Senators: CHENEY SHOULD BE PROBED in Leak

Oh, and you'll NEVER guess who the SENATORS (or rather, the SENATOR, the STOOGES having such a proud record of EXACTITUDE) are. You'll NEVER guess.

Posted 3:09 PM by Gene

Can anyone doubt that, in the long haul, and with most children, day care is just a low-level form of child neglect?

(Via -- have to say it -- THE CORNER, from just before the food fight)

Posted 2:59 PM by Gene

There's another food fight in the con-SER-va-tive playpen between the Gliberal of the Right and the MODO of the Right because she said something she shouldn't have said, prompting FREEPERS to go into their Tarzan routine again.

By our rights Jonah, MoDo and the Freepers should all get lost, and we'd include a few of their opposite numbers from the left like Kos and St. Cindy and the DUers, and the world would be a happier place for it.

Posted 1:04 PM by Gene

And we must ask again: What's the difference between the movie conspiracy and the Mob?

Posted 12:46 PM by Gene

The movie S&M phreaks are back. But the folks at the ROOTKIT MOVIE CO. must be cursing a PG-13 streak (remember, JACK'S ALPHABET SOUP adjusts to the times) because they showed Pink to the effete snobs; last week's SCREEN GEM opened in fewer theaters and did just as much biz -- without a press preview! Of course things were made difficult because Pink was already an Internet fave from last summer. This whole episode says one of two things: either ROOTKIT improved the movie (not bloody likely) or the movie S&M phreaks have no brains (bloody likely).

Meantime LUKE SPIELBERG'S MAMMOTH MEA CULPA is disappearing from the popcorn restaurants to the tune of a huge loss, and not even a big dose of Little Jeffy's SIX SIGMA can solve that.

There is slight hope, longer term: though the cinematic bird droppings are not doing worse than last year, they're not doing that much better, and our hopes spring eternal -- but with the fate of their favorite industry on the line we expect NEWS HACKS to do the same massive PR assault for the biz this summer that they do every four years for Democrats.